


Break Down the Door

by undercover_chicken



Series: DC Earth is Space Australia [2]
Category: Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law (Cartoon), Justice League - All Media Types, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, An emu beats the shit out of eveything, Batman can't mind his own goddam business, Casual references to roaches, Exposition like whoa, I have flushed almost all canon down the toilet, I'm not sorry, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, The Author Regrets Everything, Two drunk assholes beat up a kid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-04-17 20:36:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14197239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undercover_chicken/pseuds/undercover_chicken
Summary: Harvey Birdman is a washed-up alcoholic who has just been fired from his job as a lawyer at Sebben and Sebben, and a complete disappointment to his heroic Thanagarian family.Billy Batson is a homeless ten-year-old who has no family, and tries to hide this from the League on a daily basis, which he is finding harder and harder to do.Batman is on the case when he realizes how little the League knows about their superpowered new member, Captain Marvel. Superman thinks he’s a Kryptonian, but Bruce isn’t so sure-everything about the man doesn’t add up.A terrified homeless kid crashes through the front door of a highly unsuccessful independent lawyer practice/home one cold Fawcett night in a desperate bid to escape a beating by some drunks, and it all goes downhill from there.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Canon is highly optional in this story. You have been warned-read the block of text at the end for more info if you actually care.

Billy Batson is ten years old, and he’s running for his life. It’s a cold night in Fawcett City, not fit for anyone to be out, but Billy doesn’t have a home or family to go to. It doesn’t matter, since he’s about to be beaten up again. He may be Earth’s Mightiest Mortal, but he can’t just call down the lightning in front of the two half-drunk mountain men chasing him with a partially collapsed trachea from where they had him in a chokehold a few minutes before. They were hassling a young woman who works the night shift at corner burger joint as she was walking home, the one Billy used to go to when he needed to complete his homework back while he was still attending school. She was always nice to him, and let him borrow her laptop if he needed it for schoolwork, and sometimes gave him a discount on the rare occasions he had money to buy food. His conscience wouldn’t let him ignore her plight anyway. 

But an underweight and underfed ten-year-old has far less of a chance against two giant lumberjack wannabees than Captain Marvel, and they are a lot faster and have much more stamina than he does. Usually, it’s not that hard to escape people like this, but they haven’t had enough alcohol to dull their senses, which makes his usual methods of escape almost impossible.

Desperately, Billy swerves around a dumpster in a filthy trash filled alley. He promptly falls down an unseen stairwell and crashes through the half rotten door that leads to the basement at the bottom. Dazed, he lies in the wrecked, vaguely knowing the pain in his leg possibly means a twisted ankle and hearing the two idiots crash down the stairs after him. He should move, but he can’t make his brain wrap around the idea. He hears the sounds of the two drunks reaching the end of the stairwell, and braces for the worst.

***

Harvey Birdman is a complete failure at life in general, and he knows it. Sprawled out on the couch, he’s already taken his preferred poison for the night to try and forget his troubles, cheap vodka straight out of the bottle, and is well on his way to complete blackout. It takes a hell of a lot of alcohol to get a Thanagarian drunk, several times more than a normal human. Harvey’s already been to the bar until the bartender cut him off, and then he staggered home to consume enough to knock himself out. 

He’s originally from Midway. He was born on Earth, to a high ranking Thanagarian Enforcer command officer and a common beat cop. Originally sent to Earth back in the 1930s after a criminal, Katar Hol was betrayed and abandoned by his command and left alone on the planet, along with a single grunt, Kendara Thaal, someone who was considered no better than cannon fodder. While they got off to a very rocky start, they eventually became a pair whose love and loyalty to each other rivalled the deepest love stories, and became the protectors of Midway as Hawkman and Hawkwoman. Harvey, an English corruption of the Thanagarian name Haveh, was born a few decades after his older sister Dawnstar. While both inherited their father’s family’s rare ability to harness the power of the sun for their own use, something virtually unheard of in Thanagarian history, only Dawnstar followed in their parent’s footsteps as a hero. She has a Thanagarian name like Harvey, but it’s a long time since she’s used it, as she prefers her chosen name. She and Harvey have never seen Thanagar, and to them, it is as far away as the furthest reaches of the galaxy. 

Harvey tried being a hero, he really did. But Birdman was a sad pathetic excuse of a hero, and with his overdramatic tendencies, tended to get into more trouble that ended up with his family having to save his sorry ass. He hung up the cape and became a lawyer, keeping Birdman as his surname and shedding most all of his Thanagarian heritage, much to the horror and disappointment of his family. He hasn’t seen them since shortly before he got fired, and the weight of his parent’s disappointment when he did visit caused him to swear to never go back.

He worked for Sebben and Sebben in Metrocity under Phil Sebben, the psychotic one-eyed man with no depth perception who owned the practice. While life was hectic and chaotic, he at least made enough money to afford a decent apartment and food, and he drowned out his troubles with his family and life in general with failed romances and alcohol. Avenger, the Thanagarian bond-eagle that was the only part of his old life he kept, worked as his assistant and typographer, and the long-suffering Debbie as his secretary.

Eventually though, failed romances of course led to more alcohol, which led to more and more and sent him down the spiral. He became bad enough that even Phil couldn’t give any more excuses not to fire him, and sent him on his way. Friendless, Harvey wandered, and eventually ended up in Fawcett for some reason. He started a practice here in Fawcett with the meager savings he had left, but its failing. Birdman, Attorney at Law is housed in a musty, disgusting, falling apart roach-filled basement of a crummy building in the shittiest part of town, and doubles as Harvey’s place of residence. There are two rooms, the lobby and Harvey’s office, and a bathroom, and that’s it. Birdman, Attorney at Law’s employees include Avenger, who works as the typist and Harvey’s assistant, Roxanne, a very angry emu who crashed through the door one day and wouldn’t leave who handles the filing, and Birdgirl. Birdgirl’s nothing more than a human with a hand sewn suit and fake wings she made herself. Her real name is not known, but she has enough enthusiasm for ten employees, as she whirlwinds from acting secretary to fielding calls to causing a scene in the courtroom to bullying a hungover Harvey off his couch and to meet with clients.

After losing another case today, and having to walk home through the snow to his shithole of a residence while half drunk, Harvey killed a few roaches, tried to get the heat to work and failed, and then resigned himself to another night of drowning his misery on the broken couch. He’s rudely awoken a few minutes after he begins to fall asleep when a huge crash comes from the front room, startling him enough that he falls off the couch directly onto his wings, which hurts like crap and is a better wakeup call than cold water to the face. He half staggers half storms to the front room and blasts the crap out of the two idiots who were dumb enough to break into his apartment with solar energy from his fists. They flee, and he promptly trips over the half-dead looking kid lying unconscious on the floor.

“Well shit.”

***

The boy is named Billy, Billy Batson, and thankfully he isn’t dead. He’s beaten up and can’t talk because of an injury to his throat that looks suspiciously like someone tried to choke him. However, he can write, and hesitantly writes out a few answers to some of Harvey’s questions on a seldom-used yellow legal pad. He deftly avoids any mention of any family or caregiver, and is very sketchy on why the goons were chasing him in the first place. A hungover Harvey has little idea on how to care for a kid, and he racks his addled brain before finally settling on the idea of asking the kid if he is hungry-kids need food, right?

After putting Billy on the couch to rest, Harvey heads for the mini-fridge and runs into another problem-the contents of the fridge include a half gallon of curdled milk that is two months out of date, a moldy heel of bread, a half-drunk bottle of vodka, and a hairy shriveled orb that might have once been an orange. A search of the cabinets yields nothing but an almost empty box of the plain cheerios that taste more bland than the cardboard box they come in. They also yield added protein in the form of roaches when he tries to pour them into a semi-clean bowl, which ensures the box a one-way trip in the general direction of the overflowing trash can.

An hour and half and one 3am run to the corner convenience store later, Harvey returns with ten packages of ramen, a fresh gallon of milk, and a couple of cans of spam. Harvey hits another hurdle when he remembers that the microwave is completely shot, and he has no way of cooking anything. He and the kid end up eating cold spam directly out of the can, which is pretty terrible. An exhausted Billy falls asleep shortly after, and Harvey retreats to the front room. He briefly considers kicking Roxanne out her preferred place of sleep in the secretary office chair behind Birdgirl’s desk, but decides it’s not worth the possible disembowelment and opts for the highly uncomfortable armchair in the corner. Two hours later, he’s awakened by Roxanne and Birdgirl in their screaming fight over possession of the office chair.

The problem is solved by sending Birdgirl on a secret Bird Mission in the Birdmobile (a joke name for the adult sized tricycle she pulled out of a dumpster out of a local factory and repainted yellow, orange, and black) to acquire a new microwave and putting Roxanne to work refiling some really old cases that he’s had stacked in a heap on the floor. Harvey gets to work trying to fix the door.

A bit later Billy finally wakes up, and after helping himself to another cold can of spam, he leaves. He looks and sounds better (he can actually talk instead of making croaking noises, even if he does sound like an old man). Harvey’s sure he’ll never see the kid again, and doesn’t worry about it. He fixes the door, and congratulates himself on finally cleaning out the fridge and replacing the broken microwave.  
Four weeks later Billy shows up at the door again one night, and ends up not leaving again.

***

Harvey finds that having a kid hanging around invites a profound change in one’s life. For one, you can’t drink yourself stupid in a bar and then come home, collapse on the couch and drink yourself to blackout when there’s a kid sleeping on it. Plus, it sets a bad example for the kid if you do. Harvey doesn’t want him getting into any alcohol either, so his stash steadily dwindles.

Even for a kid as independent as Billy, you have someone depending on you to get essential things like food, and to pay the bills to keep the roof over your head. There’s also this annoying tendency that kids have of being expensive. The money that used to go toward the bar ends up going to feed Billy, get him some clothes that aren’t falling apart, and a few cans of Raid to kill the roaches. After a few weeks of sleeping on the shitty armchair, Harvey can’t take it anymore and goes to the local thrift store to pick up a slightly less horrible-looking couch to put in the front room, which he ends up sleeping on when it isn’t used for clients and he isn’t fighting over it with Roxanne. To make things worse, Avenger and Birdgirl get in on the self-improvement bandwagon and constantly pester Harvey over everything from his organization skills to his personal appearance. The trash is taken out more regularly, Roxanne actually finishes the filing of years’ worth of cases, and Harvey ends up spending even more money on regular trips to the laundromat and shaving regularly.

When he finally, and reluctantly, contacts Child Protective Services about Billy, they don’t really care. Already overburdened by a massive amount of kids in a system exploding at the seams with not enough foster homes, they aren’t very sympathetic towards one runaway kid who slipped through the cracks. A harried man that Harvey finally talks to all but begs him if he would be willing to be a foster parent to Billy, and Harvey finds himself signing the papers. They are willing to overlook the normal qualification process in order to place one more kid in a foster home. After taking a placement test to determine where he will be placed in school, Billy comes home to stay.

When Billy transforms into a giant of man after he gets struck by lightning and takes apart a giant robot trashing downtown Fawcett, the staff at Birdman, Attorney at Law don’t bat an eye. The only thing that happens is Billy is told it can’t interfere too much with his grades, and that’s the end of it.

Things start to look up at Birdman, Attorney at Law. They finally get enough of a reputation to get some decent clients who can pay in large enough numbers, which means they can afford a computer for Birdgirl that doesn’t run at the speed of a snail on Windows 98, actual filing cabinets for Roxanne, and a new door to fix the old one that Billy broke. Harvey also buys a rather shitty old TV, where evening entertainment usually consists of making fun of the man Carter Hall, as he declares himself Hawkman while trying (and usually failing) to save the world and clumsily tries to impress Shayera Hol.

Things aren’t perfect, but Harvey has mostly put down the bottle-he simply doesn’t have the time. Billy has a place to stay with people who somewhat care, and his life is semi-normal. Life isn’t bad.

***

Monitor duty is the known domain of the Batman. It is here he rules supreme, and all other Leaguers bow to his will and even the most rambunctious, rebellious, and not-able-to-sit still (i.e. Flash) will sit at attention silently staring at monitors while Batman silently glares at them through the lenses on his cowl from behind. 

What most of the Leaguers don’t know is that Batman isn’t looking at the monitors that show every corner of the globe. He is usually doing detective work, digging into things he probably has no business looking into but makes it his business to know. Today, his victim is Captain Marvel, a grinning and cheerfully innocent-acting man who is a Superman expy but is shrouded in mystery. While Captain Marvel wears his emotions on his sleeve, little is known about the man’s private life. All Batman knows is that he was born in Fawcett, and he has issues with his family. A spat of bad family issues had put the Captain on severely reduced availability, only to be contacted in emergency, and the Captain has only recently returned to active status. 

Bruce can’t stand not knowing everything about his comrades-he doesn’t like that he doesn’t know anything about the Captain, and to him it makes the Captain a liability. Bruce doesn’t trust him as much as Clark and Barry do yet.

Monitor duty winds down to a close, and Bruce has no leads. Closing out the computer, he rises and leaves the room, headed for a Zeta tube. 

Time to do some detective work in the field.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce digs deeper and finds Captain Marvel is wearing the face of a man dead for over a decade. Harvey and Billy have a short chat. And then, of course, things go to hell.

Bruce has been on the hunt for over eight months, and is no further along in his investigation than when he started. He’s been stalking the Captain for months in Fawcett, and the man seems to be able to pull an amazingly effective vanishing act whenever he disappears. There is little to no information about him anywhere online, and he reveals as little of his life to the press as he does to the League. While some could argue that he would have a right to privacy, Bruce is naturally nosy, and he also is loath to know so little about a man with the same powerset as Superman.

Clark is convinced that the Captain is another Kryptonian, but Bruce isn’t so sure. But with what little he knows about the Captain, it seems more and more likely that Clark’s hypothesis may be correct. For one, Marvel is extremely fast, and he is also extremely strong, on levels that easily match Clark. He can also fly for no discernable reason, and seems to be extremely smart, easily as smart as Clark is. But he is very secretive, on a level that rivals Bruce, and that bothers the man. What does the Captain have to hide?

Today finds him in plainclothes, sitting at a diner that would easily fit into 1940s to 1950s Americana. Fawcett is a strange city, seemingly existing stuck in time but timeless all at once. It’s not a feeling the Bruce can easily explain, even as he watches people dressed in an odd mixture of clothes that are both modern day and that would easily have fit in in the mid-20th century go about their business. Men walk by in suits wielding smart phones but with fedoras, and children sit on the stoop of a townhome, with little girls dolled up in dresses while watching a video on a tablet. A whale of a Cadillac with fins the size of a skyscraper and covered in chrome is parked on a street corner near a fire hydrant, while a policeman busily writing out ticket via tablet for it drives an old-style Mercury coupe patrol car that would easily be at home in the forties. Within the car, his donut-eating partner is examining the computer screen that is commonly found in modern police cars, even though the car is far too old to even still be in service. Even the villains that attack the city are more comedic than dangerous most days, and seem like they would be more at home in a comic book than in real life.

Bruce finishes his meal and finds himself headed into the Woolsworths five and dime store on the corner (didn’t Woolsworth go out of business in the 1980s?) down from the diner. While there, he nearly runs right into a man on the phone that is coming out of the store. 

“I told you Myron, I’m not coming back to the practice. Phil can take his offer and shove it up his-whoops, ‘scuse me, mind the wings!” the man yelps as he tries to avoid hitting Bruce. He sports a pair of large bluish gray wings similar to those of Shayera, and a yellow and black mask that covers his whole face with a crest, eerily similar to traditional Thanagarian getup. However, the resemblance ends, as he’s also wearing slacks, bright yellow shoes, and a pink cardigan. “I don’t care that his business has gone down the toilet, and even folks like Falcone are asking for me back, I like being here in Fawcett. No, I haven’t found a woman, that has nothing to do with it….”

Intrigued by the mysterious Thanagarian-like man, Bruce starts as if to follow, but is distracted when Dr. Sivana’s robot of the week comes crashing through the park nearby, only to be slammed by Captain Marvel. Bruce’s attention is immediately directed back to his original quarry, and he forgets all about the strange Thanagarian in the cardigan.

***

It takes Billy almost fifteen minutes to shake Bruce. He’s been having trouble lately, especially in school, since he’s having to take extra precautions to shake off the Batman. Things are much better since he started living with Harvey-he won’t lie, it’s not like living in the Taj Mahal, but it beats living with his uncle or the streets. He’s at least fed and clothed and has a roof over his head that isn’t leaking. 

However, with his unexpected stalker, he can’t just slip out to go trash Sivana’s robots and then slip back into school ten minutes later. He’s been getting into trouble lately with the teachers for skipping out on class, and they did call his guardian in on it. When Harvey mentioned it at dinner one night, he told Harvey some of the truth, that Captain Marvel was taking up a lot of his time. Harvey seemed satisfied with the answer, and didn’t bring it up again. Billy can’t think of anything worse than getting Harvey mixed up with Batman, it would be a complete recipe for disaster. Today though, he’s in luck and the robot pancaked the empty school gymnasium, meaning school is out for the rest of the afternoon. With no school, Billy skips past a group of kids, one of which calls out a greeting. Freddy Freeman is a couple of grades above him and a baseball star, but is a generally nice guy. Billy is friendly to everyone, but tends to keep to himself and doesn’t really have any friends other than Judy.

Judy, a sixteen-year-old redhead who calls herself Birdgirl, comes from a family with a single parent. Her mother is a successful CEO of a small tech firm, but is constantly busy and has little time for a family. Her father and mother are divorced, and her father wants nothing to do with her, simply making child support payments every month with no other contact. He lives out in California, Judy had said, and she hasn’t seen him since she was six. She has a memory that rivals the Wisdom of Solomon though, and is able to recite whole passages from the lawbooks of Fawcett City and the state. She occasionally tutors Billy in subjects such as social studies and reading. She is also even more flamboyant, overdramatic, and over the top than Harvey, but she’s a genuinely kind person who cares about people. Billy has a suspicion that she and Batgirl would probably get along quite well if they ever had to opportunity to meet.

Billy heads over to the diner, the Birdcage, that he knows Harvey likes to frequent when he’s not working. Over the last few months, he’s gotten used to Harvey’s odd tendencies, but there are always things that can surprise him. When he heads over to Harvey’s table, there’s a man sitting there talking to him already. Which in itself isn’t that unusual, except the man is green, and he is wearing one of the ugliest outfits Billy has ever seen, a sort of purple and black jumpsuit thing with a M motif on the front. He has a hairdo and facial hair that vaguely resembles Black Adam, but there the resemblance ends.

Billy slides sideways towards Harvey, eyeing the man warily. “Hey Harvey, who’s you friend?”

The man seems affronted, and gestures towards himself dramatically, declaring, “I am Mentok, the Mind-Taker! Surely you have heard of me, little boy!” At Billy’s blank look, he huffs and says, “They don’t teach these kids anything anymore! I was huge ten years ago!”

“You were only huge in your own mind,” Harvey replies with a laugh. “You were barely known in Midway even! Billy, this is an old colleague and friend of mine, Judge Mentok from Metrocity. We grew up together back in Midway. Mentok started out as a small-time villain back then when I was trying out hero work, but he eventually got a degree and became a judge over in Metrocity around the time when I was working for Sebben and Sebben. That reminds me, how is Hiram doing after that mess with the mafia case?”

“You mean Mightor? He’s doing fine, out of the hospital and back to work as usual. Still has that ridiculous stone hammer of his and still wearing that dumb powdered wig. I swear everyone in that city is nuts in some way or another. Sebben had Falcone take over for you, but he’s terrible. Even drunk off your ass or hungover you were still a better lawyer than most of what Sebben has under his roof. You didn’t hear this from me, but I heard that some of the better staff were leaving.”

“Yeah, Reducto was telling me earlier that he was thinking of leaving the practice and starting somewhere else. He said Sebben’s become unbearable over the past few months, the mental instability has become worse. It’s a shame really, he was the only one willing to give me a chance, and he did treat me well while I was there even if he was strange. I think it is early dementia setting in for him-I don’t know how much longer the practice will be open at this rate, and I feel bad for the guy with no close relatives that are willing to deal with him. He has money, but no one to take care of him.”

“Yes, things have been going downhill in Metrocity lately,” Mentok replies. “Corruption and political bullshit have been getting worse, and I’ve been thinking of moving myself. Say, what’s up with your young friend here, Harvey? I didn’t know you had a kid. Doesn’t look much like you, I have to say.”

A stammering Harvey and startled Billy are both quick to correct him, and while Mentok doesn’t bring it up again, he does keep giving Harvey knowing looks. He eventually leaves, and Billy and Harvey head back to the law practice.

“Billy,” Harvey suddenly asks after a long period of silence, “Are you happy being a hero?”

Startled, Billy looks up at his guardian, and asks “What do you mean?”

“Well, I was just wondering. I’m not saying you are too young, and I’m not saying it’s a bad thing you are Captain Marvel. For Sola’s sake, you can toss a train a couple of miles into the air and are freaking indestructible. I don’t worry about your safety, and I don’t want you to think that I’m trying to cramp your style or anything. I just wanted to say that, well….damn, I don’t know the best way to put this..”

“Um….my parents are superheroes, and when I was younger, that’s all I wanted to be. I …I put on the mask when I was about sixteen. Starting out, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else, everyone in my family were in the line of work and they had been doing it for years, since the thirties. But once I got into it, I…I realized something, and it was something…important.”

“What was it?” Billy asks softly.

“I hated it. Sure, being a hero was hard, and I was also bad at it. But I slogged through it for years, because I wanted my parents to be proud of me. I despised it, and eventually, I decided I just couldn’t do it anymore. I quit, and went to law school. My parents were so disappointed in me; they saw me as a failure. I couldn’t please them, even when I graduated with honors. And people who knew me in Midway saw the same thing. I was a failure in the eyes of everyone I knew. No one would hire me, everywhere I applied they told me the same thing, ‘Why don’t you go back to hero work where you belong?’ “

“I guess what I’m trying to say is that, you’re young yet, and you may change your mind about things in your life and what you want to do with it. And don’t be afraid to do so-you’ve got your whole life ahead of you. Live your life for yourself-if you wake up one day and being the Earth’s Mightiest Mortal isn’t what you want to do anymore, then you need to let that wizard fellow of yours know, Billy. Hero work isn’t just a job, it’s a calling, and you have to feel the call if you are going to make it work. You don’t have to be a hero for all of your life, you can do other things if you want. Don’t box yourself in, because you’ll turn out as a deadbeat aimless drunk like me.”

“I’m happy with most of it, “ Billy says after a minute. “I will say, it’s got its downsides. The League can make things hard at times and sometimes I wonder if I should have joined. There are times when I wonder if I should have taken the wizard’s gift. But it’s never wondering if I want it or not-I’ve always wanted to help people. It’s always me telling myself that I’m not worthy of the magic, of the power I’ve been given. It’s self-doubt in my worth, not unhappiness with what I do. I like to think my parents would be proud of me, but I don’t really know, since they are gone.”

They continue on in silence for a few minutes more before Harvey says, “I don’t know how much my opinion matters Billy, but I think you do a damn fine job as Marvel, and you are a hell of a better hero than I ever was, and a far finer person than I’ll ever be.”

The statement startles and humbles Billy, and he remains in silent thought, even as Harvey heads back to his office when they get back to the practice to see his next client, and Billy starts on his homework. Birdgirl’s yelling on the phone, he can hear Avenger screeching in argument with Harvey back in the office and typing out as Harvey dictates, and Roxanne screaming away at herself as she hunts down stray papers to file.

No, life may not be perfect and Billy will always miss his parents. But this is the closest thing he’s had to a family in a long time, and he’ll be damned if he loses them anytime soon.

***

Bruce finally has a lead, but it’s another dead end. Facial recognition software he’s had trawling through the newspapers and newscasts for the past nine months have finally scored a hit. The Fawcett Bugle has finally digitized a lot of their old newspapers and put them online. A hit from over seven years before has shown up on facial recognition, and when Bruce examines it, it’s a man by the name of C. C. Batson. The problem? It’s an obituary: he died along with his wife Marilyn in an archaeological accident in Egypt seven years previously.

Captain Marvel wears the face of a dead man.

Trawling deeper, Bruce finds a story full of sadness and tragedy for the small family. C.C. and Marilyn were, by all accounts, quite decent people who were well known and well known in both archaeological and social circles, with two young children. After their deaths, Marilyn’s sister, a Mrs. Bromfield who lives over in Fieldcrest, not too far from Fawcett, and her husband took one of Marilyn’s two children, a young girl named Mary. The other child, a boy named William, went with Charles’s brother Ezekiel. 

With no other leads, Bruce begins to investigate further. The more he looks into the circumstances behind the Batsons’ deaths, the more suspicious they seem. They had no will for when they died, so their possessions and considerable amount of money ended up going to their children. However, while Mary’s case seems straightforward, the situation around Billy is much, much different. After a year of living with his uncle, Billy just drops out of the system, as though he doesn’t exist at all. He doesn’t show up for another five years, and when he does, its being assigned to a foster home with a single man as his guardian called Harvey Birdman.  
And if that wasn’t suspicious enough, all the money that Billy had as his inheritance had been legally taken over by his uncle. The sizable chunk of change Billy has inherited after his parents' death now belonged to his uncle, with no way for him to access it. 

Bruce is angry. He knows the foster system has its flaws, and both it and his uncle have obviously failed Billy. While he can’t directly intervene, he decides it’s time to set in motion some events to right some wrongs, and starts to make some phone calls.

***

Two months later, Billy’s happy world is shattered when CPS shows up on his doorstep to take him to meet with his new permanent family, the Bromfields. They had been unable to support both children when his mother and father passed, but after details came out about how terribly Billy’s uncle had treated him, they were insistent that he come and stay with them. And with a family life preferable to Billy staying with a single, unmarried man in a foster home, he can no longer stay in Fawcett. So, Billy bids his goodbyes, and unhappily heads off to Fieldcrest to live with an aunt he has never met, and with a sister he barely remembers.

Harvey manages to hold himself together, and while he avoids the bottle, things definitely change at Birdman, Attorney at Law. Roxanne takes to shredding papers instead of filing them and building a nest, making sad noises as she does so. She only halfheartedly fights with Birdgirl over the office chair, often conceding, which she never has done before. Birdgirl is very subdued, and Avenger fights less with Harvey, who has fallen back into depression. There is a hole in their lives shaped like a ten-year-old boy, and they don’t know how to fill it.

Back in the Watchtower, Bruce may have solved one problem, but they have a bigger one. Captain Marvel is gone. He has completely disappeared without a trace, and no amount of comm calls can garner a response. While he initially thinks that the Captain is AWOL, as the weeks turn into months, and the Captain fails to appear, Bruce begins to think they may have a missing hero on their hands. Local villains halfheartedly show up in Fawcett only for Captain Marvel to never appear.

The mystery surrounding the man deepens. Who is Captain Marvel, and where did he go? And why does he bear such striking resemblance to a man who has been dead almost a decade?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy's not happy in his new home. Nora Bromfield has lost almost all her family, including her sister, and is determined to protect whatever is left. And things at Birdman, Attorney at Law haven't improved since Billy left.  
> Basically everyone is miserable. And then the Thanagarians attack, making everything worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, have a rather crummy short chapter. It's mostly just to set up for the next chapter-ironically I originally meant for this to only be two chapters but now I'm looking at more like four.

The Bromfields are a perfectly nice little suburban family, and Fieldcrest is a perfectly nice little suburban town. They have a perfectly normal home with a perfectly normal family, like the little family that was in the Dick and Jane books that Billy had suffered through when he was learning to read back in kindergarten. They even have a dog called Spot. 

For Billy, it’s a prison he can’t escape.

His sister Mary is too naïve and idealistic for Billy’s tastes, and the Bromfields too involved in their kids’ lives, the poster child for helicopter parents. He knows that he is much more naïve than pretty much every other hero active in the League, but Mary’s naivete puts his to shame. He’s seriously wondering if he’s living through some sort of 1950s suburban hell on an episode of the Twilight Zone. They all mean well, but Billy’s been a street kid most of his life, and spent the last year or so living with the daily insanity of being a foster child in the care of Harvey and a superhero on par with Superman. He has instincts that he’s honed over the years and that have been hardwired into him for survival that don’t translate well into normal civilian life. 

Going to school in Fieldcrest is difficult. Billy is already behind in his schooling from being on the streets for years, and while he has no trouble talking to people, he has trouble trusting people enough to make friends. Both of these issues make a mixture that makes him a prime target for bullies, making adjustment to the new area rough. Back in Fawcett, going back to school hadn’t been as bad, because the support net that was formed by Harvey and the rest of the folks at the law practice had been more than enough to help Billy adjust. However, with it now gone, Billy’s struggling.

Today, he’s been dragged along with Mary and Mrs. Bromfield to the mall, and stuck with Mary and a bunch of her girlfriends while Mrs. Bromfield is shopping. Billy had thought that escaping them would be easy and he could spend most of his time at the food court or arcade, but it turns out that a gaggle of preteen girls is an extremely effective containment device. Dragged through the entire clothing store, he patiently waits it out hoping that torture will end soon. Predictably, that’s when the Thanagarian army attacks, and everyone panics.

***

Nora Bromfield is terrified, but her first thought is to grab both the kids and get the hell out of the mall. After losing her sister, they are the only family she has left, and she will be damned if she loses them too. She can only hope her husband Nick is alright at his work, and that they can meet up after this mess is over. Grabbing Mary and an oddly reluctant Billy, she searches desperately for any available exit as she drags the kids along trying to avoid the panicking people and hostile bird men.

The doors opening to the north parking lot are, somehow, somewhat clear, and Nora makes a break for it. Her luck holds and she makes almost to the doors before it runs out and suddenly two hulking bird men come crashing into the ground in front of her, weapons held up threateningly at her and the kids. Nora grabs both children and slams them to the floor while shielding them with her body, determined to protect both of them to her last breath. Billy struggles for a minute, and Nora can hear the weapons odd whine as they charge. She braces herself for the end, until Billy abruptly kicks free of her and darts away. Before she can do anything more than start to look up with a hand extended towards the wayward boy, she hears Billy’s thin voice calls out:

“SHAZAM!!!”

Thunder crashes so close that the ground shakes as though an earthquake just hit. Lighting explodes around her and Mary, who screams in terror. Nora can’t see or hear anything for a moment, and when her vision does return, there is smoke and lighting still crackling randomly around a large figure kneeling on the ground. All the bird men that were close to them have all been blown backwards by the force of the lightning strike, and lie on the ground moaning. The others are all standing gaping at the figure kneeling on the floor, who abruptly stands up and turns around with a whirl of his white and gold cape, head bowed and lighting still gathered around his clenched fists. When he looks up, Nora has to suppress a startled shriek. The furious face of her dead brother in law glares angrily at the bird men, who collectively take a step back, hesitantly raising their weapons towards him.

“You know, I’ve been having a really bad time lately,” he says conversationally, and steps toward the bird men, lighting still crackling. They step back again. “My life has really sucked over the last few months, especially since I moved here. I’ve got a lot of pent up anger and frustration, and you guys so conveniently dropped in. I have to say, that’s very thoughtful of you.” He takes another step. In response, the bird men raise their weapons and then abruptly shoot out the ceiling above them. Nora barely has time to scream as the ceiling plummets towards her and Mary, before she feels a jerk on her collar and a distinct feeling nausea. Beside her, she can hear Mary sobbing and screaming in terror.

In the blink of an eye, they are on top of a hill in the park only a half a mile from their house, and one she knows is almost five miles away from the now wrecked mall. She knows because she can hear the tiger that is kept in a too-small cage snarling and pacing behind her. Sitting and clutching Mary to her as Mary sobs from the sheer terror of nearly dying, she looks up into the face of her brother-in-law. Except it isn’t. The eyes are the wrong color-they’re her sister’s eyes. The same ones that Billy has. 

The truth hits Nora like a ton of bricks. Billy was gone, and somehow, in his place, is Captain Marvel. He had called out the strange phrase right before the lightning storm. Somehow, Billy and the Captain were the same. Billy doesn’t need her protection, and Nora suddenly remembers the reports coming out of Fawcett of their missing hero. A creeping horror comes over her as she then realizes that she and Nick have deprived the city and the Justice League one of their sorely needed defenders. For several moments, she and Captain Marvel simply stare at each other, before he transfers his gaze to the snarling tiger behind them.  
Picking up a gold-cuffed hand, he points at it and says something in a language she doesn’t understand, but can feel the power rippling out like waves from the gesture. A bolt of lightning slams into the unfortunate creature, and when the smoke clears, the tiger has grown in size to that of a large horse. It leaps out with a snarl and lightning still crackling around it, and Nora draws back in fear.

The Captain turns back to her, and says “Tawny will protect you from anything that would try and harm you.” Then abruptly, he’s gone, soaring up and away in the general direction of Metropolis.

Nora sits staring stupidly after him for a minute or so, before turning back to find the huge tiger has laid down in front of her and Mary, head on its paws and looking at her with eyes far to intelligent to be a mere beast.

“I swear to God Billy, you better come back alive and well because I am NOT taking care of this pet tiger of yours for you!”

***

She-Called-Roxanne is unhappy. Yellow-Flock-Leader is miserable and does nothing but lie all day on the long-soft-thing and stare at the strange glow-box. There are no flutteries for her to put away in the large hard boxes, and even Small-Fierce-Red Warrioress is subdued. She rarely fights with She-Called-Roxanne over the small-soft-thing-that-spins anymore, usually giving in without much fuss, and lately hasn’t been showing up as much. She exchanges a glance with Loyal-Fighter-Companion, and he gives a soft cry as she croons unhappily, wandering around looking for any stray flutteries that may have escaped her watchful eye.

Suddenly, the opening bangs as Small-Fierce-Red Warrioress comes whirling in. Yellow-Flock-Leader barely even reacts as Loyal-Fighter-Companion screeches at her. She abruptly screams at him, “There are Thanagarians attacking Earth, and they defeated the Justice League!”

Yellow-Flock-Leader responds despondently, “Why do I care? To hell with it. If they want it, let them have it. I’m no hero.”  
“That’s not the point!” Red Warrioress shrieks. “They have Billy!”

She-Called-Roxanne pecks at Loyal-Fighter-Companion insistently, wanting to know what is going on. He tells her that the feathered ones like Yellow-Flock-Leader, but the bad ones, a rival flock, have taken Small-Storm and hold him captive. She-Called-Roxanne screams in fury as she does a battle dance, and both she and Fighter look towards Flock-Leader. 

He has jumped off the long-soft-thing, looking more alert than he has since Small-Storm went away to join another flock, and roars “I’ll take the case!! Birdgirl, Avenger, to the Birdmobile!” before running for the opening to outside. 

She, Loyal-Fighter-Companion, and Small-Fierce-Red Warrioress look briefly at each other before screaming out battle cries and following Flock-Leader up and out. Red Warrioress follows a second later, lugging a briefcase. Whooping and shrieking, they head out. She-Called-Roxanne is ready to kick the ones who took Small-Storm from her flock. They will make the rivals understand why they should never mess with anyone from her flock!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The League is captured and all seems lost. But Batman's finally going to get some answers. That's good, right? Also, the Thanagarians learn the dangers of dealing with Earth traffic laws.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's chapter 4, there should be one more to wrap things up. I hope you enjoy this chapter! Also I looked up Traffic Codes of several states: California's alone has over 40,000 sections, which is easily around a thousand pages.

They lost.

They lost, betrayed by a person that they had trusted for years, someone who had been with them since the founding of the League. Bruce has handled betrayals like this before, but few that have cut as deep and harshly as this one. He can only imagine what John Stewart, who is two cells across and down from him and minus his ring, feels, since he and Shayera were so close. To realize that she was plotting the betrayal from the beginning resonates deep in his mind. How did he not see it? 

Bruce is sharing a cell with Hal Jordan, and he can see Barry is further down in some sort of containment device made to keep him from vibrating out of it with superspeed. Hal’s missing his ring, and Bruce himself has been stripped down almost naked before they let him have some parts of his suit back to allow him to keep some semblance of modesty. Other members of the Justice League are within the jail as well, but not in their cell block. They are considered the most high-risk prisoners, and are therefore kept apart from the others. Diana is across and next to John Stewart, screaming at any Thanagarian soldiers that walk by, and trashing any that are stupid enough to get within reach of her through the cell bars. Most have learned to give her a wide berth. Bruce has to laugh to himself as they stare incomprehensively at her angry tirades-she is cussing them out in ancient Greek. Brue is most worried about Clark-the alien is right across from him, lying unbound in a cell, held at bay by a massive amount of Kryptonite held in the center. Clark is violently ill, and fading fast. If he remains in the presence of that much Kryptonite for a few more days, he may soon be sick beyond any help. He supposes that they are lucky that there has been no word from J’onn, who is missing.

There is some commotion suddenly in the hallway leading to their block, and several of the heroes crane their necks to see what’s going on. A couple of Thanagarians come storming in with Captain Marvel of all people, bound in Nnth metal cuffs, and throw him into the cell with Superman. Of course, put both of them in the same cell and the Kryptonite would pull double duty in effectively containing them, Bruce thinks. After tossing the groaning man into the cell, the Thanagarians linger for a while before eventually leaving.

It takes a few hours but Captain Marvel finally comes around and sits up with a muffled swear, vainly trying to rub at his aching head with cuffed hands. He looks around confused, taking in his surroundings. Bruce studies the formerly AWOL hero. Unlike normal, the Captain looks like hell. His suit is torn, he’s missing half his cape, and he’s covered in cuts and bruises and sporting a black eye. There’s a particularly nasty looking knot on his head, which Bruce suspects is what allowed the Thanagarians to capture him. 

The Captain appears to be trying to gather himself, but when he sits up, he’s weaving rather badly, and he appears a bit cross-eyed, like he can’t focus his gaze. He tries standing, but only manages to stagger wildly towards the wall before leaning up against it, then sliding to the floor with a groan. His head bows, and he’s abruptly out like a light. 

Any news, updates, or information they can get from the man will have to wait. He’s in worse shape than Clark, and Bruce can only hope that the Kryptonite won’t worsen him much more. 

***

Three hours later, and Captain Marvel abruptly sits up. Most of his wounds look to have healed almost all the way, and when he looks around, his gaze is bright and focused-all of the confusion and delirium from before is gone. He picks absently at the cuffs binding his wrists, and then gets to his feet, only to freeze when he sees Bruce across from him. Bruce is staring at him strangely, but Hal beats him to asking the obvious question.

“Dude, how are you immune to the Kryptonite?”

Marvel looks at Hal strangely. “What?”

“You’re Kryptonian, in a cell with freaking Superman, who’s been sick as a dog and unable to move for the last three days because of it. How in the hell are you up and moving around? My god, I think you look better than you did yesterday!” Hal hollers.

“Wha…you think I’m Kryptonian?!” Captain Marvel yelps. He looks so utterly shocked that Bruce is almost sure that he isn’t lying. That kind of stunned surprise is hard to fake. 

“Of course we did, you have the same powers as Superman. You mean you have been lying to us this whole time?” John speaks up from his cell eyeing the Captain with an accusatory glare.

“What made you think he was Kryptonian?” Diana abruptly demands. “It’s obvious he is not, the symbols on his cape are an ancient language that I have only seen in the most ancient of magics. Any half blind fool could see that.”

From the absolutely stunned looks the rest of the others (sans Clark, who is unconscious), are giving Diana, they were just as stunned as Bruce was. Bruce feels a bit like an idiot, Clark had gotten him so sold on the idea the Captain was a member of his species that it had blinded Bruce to any idea of magic being involved. Looking back, it is a bit obvious. Fawcett is steeped in odd energy that Bruce has felt before when in magical areas, and the Captain’s disappearing act is obviously magical. His powers are also easily explained by magic, but it doesn’t explain the source, which, if they ever get out of here, Bruce will definitely be investigating.

“Diana’s right, my powers come from magic. I’m as human as you can imagine. Sorry to disappoint you guys,” Marvel says, looking a bit apologetic.

“Where the hell have you been?” Hal roars. “You just skipped out on us. Not cool man. We’ve been searching for you for weeks, and trying to get in touch every way imaginable. And then this damned shitshow with the bird guys, you really let us down.”

With the rest of the team glaring at the Captain, including Bruce, he hangs his head and looks very, very unhappy. “I’m sorry guys. I’ve been having a lot of family issues lately,” Marvel says softly. “I recently had to move out of where I had been living for a long time and leave the people I consider my family. I haven’t been able to get back to Fawcett or the League without compromising my identity, or them. It’s hard to be on your own for so long and finally be able to find a family and a home, only to have it all ripped away again without you being able to do anything.”

The Captains apology hits Bruce right in what’s left of his hard heart, and obviously, it’s hit the other Leaguers pretty hard, except maybe John Stewart. “That still doesn’t excuse you from your duty, Captain. You took an oath when you joined the League, and we expect you to hold by it. If you have issues at home, then you needed to let us know. Because of you, we were captured!” he snaps.

Captain Marvel suddenly looks angry. He jumps to his feet, facing John with his fists clenched and jaw tight. “You think I asked for this? That my life gets even more fucked up with every passing day? The fact that I ran away from my uncle when I was younger because living on the streets was better than living with him after my parents died? I’ve lived on the streets for the last seven years of my life! You want to know why I was always in the League cafeteria, or why I would hang around during the winter when I was off duty? It was because it was the one square meal a day I could get that wasn’t out of a dumpster or garbage can, and that I wouldn’t freeze to death! I may have magic, but it doesn’t pay my bills, give me food, or give me a place to sleep! I fight magic horrors daily that you can’t even imagine!” he screams at a startled John.

Marvel looks away and down, and when he looks back up, there are tears running down his face. “I haven’t had a family since I was seven and my parents were murdered. I had the closest thing I’ve had to a family since then, and then it was suddenly gone. There was nothing I could do. Nothing. I’ve got all this power, and it was useless. I wasn’t able to do a single damn THING as what little family I built was ripped away from me.”

“I can’t get us out of here. This entire ship and these cuffs are made of Nnth metal, which is blocking most all of my magic. About the only thing I can do is maintain the guise and partially heal some of my wounds. I’m worse than useless. I’m a liability, and no help to you. I’m sorry for everything.” Captain Marvel’s head hangs in defeat as he sinks to the floor, tears silently running down his face. 

Silence falls over the cell block. John shifts uncomfortably, but Bruce doesn’t feel that sorry for him-he may be suffering from a broken heart, but it’s no reason to act like an ass. Maybe Bruce is biased, but he knows what it is like to lose his parents. He understands Marvel, and relates more to the man than he ever expected to. Silence continues to permeate the cell block, and the hours begin to tick by.

***

They have taken John out of the cell block, and dragged him somewhere else. Where to, Bruce has no idea. The uncomfortable silence is still hanging over the cell block, and the guards that are standing around the block converse quietly in hushed tones in Thanagarian. 

Suddenly, screams, yelling, crashing, and screeches come from the hallway outside. Several others in the block perk up, as the noisy chaos appears to be getting closer. The Thanagarian guards exchange glances, and then grab their weapons, falling into defensive positions. The lead guard is giving orders, when suddenly a huge, gaudy yellow and orange tricycle with wings on it comes flying through the doorway and crashes into him, taking him down instantly. He howls in rage, thrashing around and getting even more tangled in the vehicle. 

What follows is something Bruce can only compare to the strangest hallucinations he’s had when infected with Fear Toxin.

A roar of “BIIIRRRRRRRDMANNNNNNN” and another Thanagarian dressed in a rumpled suit comes crashing through the door, blowing it straight out of the way with what appear to be light blasts from his fists, and blasting indiscriminately around at the other Thanagarians with the blasts. A girl in a pants suit with a flaming red hair, a similar mask, and what looks to be handmade wings comes roaring in right after him, swinging a briefcase and howling “Eat habeus corpus, assholes!” as she brings it down on an unfortunate Thanagarians head. A screeching and screaming emu comes flailing through the door and begins to kick the literal shit out of any Thanagarians who are stupid enough to come close. 

Captain Marvel has jumped to his feet, awe and hope on his face, before saying an incredulous “Harvey?” The suited Thanagarian whirls around and bellows “Billy!” right as a squad of Thanagarians comes charging through the door. The afore-named “Harvey” whirls and charges the new opponents along with the crazed emu and girl. Meanwhile, a large purple eagle wearing a golden collar (? at this point Bruce isn’t even surprised anymore) swoops by, eyes the battle going on and rolls its eyes, and then begins picking the lock on Captain Marvel’s cell. Seconds later he has it open, and goes to work on the lock on the cuffs.  
With a clank, they fall to the ground, and Marvel grins. Clenching his fists, lighting abruptly gathers around them and eventually his entire body, as the half-healed wounds disappear instantly and his torn costume and cape are fixed. Turning he roars, “Get down!”, and the others throw themselves to the floor as he lets loose a magical thunderstorm that leaves two squads of groaning Thanagarians passed out on the floor. 

While they are getting up, Marvel turns to the eagle and says “Avenger, can you get the others out? We need to let them go too if we are going to beat these guys.” The eagle sighs heavily and rolls its eyes but gets to work on Diana’s cell next. Marvel turns to face Harvey, beaming, when suddenly a Thanagarian on the floor rises up with his sword aimed at Harvey’s head. Before anyone can react, the red-haired girl slams the briefcase down on his head, poleaxing him immediately. “No one can stand up to the traffic codes of Fawcett!” she crows. “There’s like a thousand pages in here!”

By now, the eagle has managed to free Diana and moves on to Bruce. Marvel takes Barry, releasing him, while the emu has dragged Clark away from the Kryptonite and appears to be trying to sit on him, crooning worriedly. Diana is tossing the Thanagarians into the open cells and locking them in, while the redhead is staring mournfully at the tricycle. “We lost the Birdmobile,” she says sadly. 

Marvel pats her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it Judy, we can always replace it.” By now, everyone is gathering around them, with some of the Justice League looking curiously at the motley crew that just saved them. A groan from the general direction of the emu indicates Clark is finally beginning to stir, and hopefully he’ll be back to some fighting form in a few more minutes.

“Unghhh….what the hell? What is….why the hell am I under an emu? Get off me!” Angry screams from the emu and pained yells from Clark indicate his return to consciousness. 

“Glad you could join us Clark,” Batman speaks when a slightly battered Clark joins them a few minutes later. “Now, let’s go kick these sorry bastards back to the planet they came from. Here’s the plan….”

Moments later, the groups split off, ready to deliver vengeance to any Thanagarian stupid enough to get in their way.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A ship blows up, a bunch of Thanagarians get the living shit beaten out of them, Harvey's life manages to fuck up at the worst possible moment as usual, and Captain Marvel attempts to explain magic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that the pathetic attempt I take at world building in this chapter, especially the explanations concerning Thanagarian ships and magic, are all my own and do not come from DC. Sorry this took so long, I had to finish up my masters thesis over the past few months.

They’ve split off into teams, Billy going with Superman, the idea being since they can fly they are the most well suited to taking out the shield device that threatens to destroy Earth. One of the Green Lanterns and Wonder Woman are going to break out the rest of the Justice League members out of the other cell blocks so that they can join in the fight against the shield. Hopefully, they will be able to locate the Lantern rings, and the Lantern and freed heroes will join Superman and Billy in the fight against the shield if they are successful. Wonder Woman will then join their group in their endeavor, which is one of the most dangerous. Batman, the Flash, himself, and what is left of his group are headed right into the heart of the beast, to try and recover the other Green Lantern and destroy the ship from the inside. Harvey is dragged along with Batman’s group since he let Batman know that he knows something about how Thanagarian ships are set up, and also knows the language so hopefully he will be able to help decode any control panels they come across. 

They run through the ship, doing their best to avoid detection with Flash zipping ahead. With Avenger’s help, they avoid patrols and disable security systems as they run. Any other patrols they can’t avoid they disable. While fighting, a Thanagarian goon manages to get in a lucky shot and take out half of Harvey’s primary feathers on his left wing. While the smell is horrible, akin to burning hair, the wound is only mildly painful. However, it does affect Harvey’s ability to fly, as primary feathers provide thrust for forward motion when flying. He feverishly hopes he won’t have to fly very long or far, as he isn’t sure that his wings will support his weight for very long, or even at all.

As they are tearing down a hallway with a panoramic view of the outside, Flash pauses ahead of them and says in dumbstruck awe, “Holy mother of…” while looking out the window at the view outside. Superman is nowhere to be seen, but there is an absolutely massive storm brewing directly below the ship. Clouds blacker than the blackest night sky have turned the entire sky dark, with lightning blasting through them like the world’s largest jagged quilt. In the center of it all, Billy hovers with the cape fluttering behind him, face shadowed and stern and looking like some sort of vengeful god out of a legend of old. 

Harvey knows that Billy has immense power as Captain Marvel, but he has never truly seen it on full display like this before or comprehended the scale of it. Knowing and seeing are two completely different animals. There is something awe-inspiring and terrifying, and yet unbelievable in seeing all that power, and the realization of it is somewhat shocking. Smaller ships and fighters are sparking and then exploding left and right, which mystifies Harvey, as he knows that the Nth metal is naturally resistant to magic. They should be relatively unaffected, and yet they are falling like leaves. If they survive this, he decides to try and get the answer to the mystery out of Billy later. 

Batman draws their attention back to the issues at hand and they reluctantly turn away from the window, heading back towards their original objective. A bit later, Harvey absently notes the writing on a sign over a corridor that leads off from their main objective. It leads towards one of the engine rooms on the starboard side of the ship, the one that, if he remembers the design of Thanagarian ships correctly, powers some of the cruiser’s critical weapon and maneuverability systems, as well as powers the comms. If they were to take those out, the ship would be a sitting duck to any attack, and the fleet would be at a serious disadvantage in communications. While following that train of thought, he nearly runs right into Roxanne, who has skidded to a halt along with the rest of the group as a large explosion rocks the ship. “Hal’s up!” came the cry from one of the others, as a green streak can be seen rocketing out of a large hole in side of the ship. A second figure, most likely Wonder Woman, follows seconds later, and joins in the battle with Superman who are currently taking out the smaller battle cruisers while Billy’s lightning storm from hell takes care of most fighters and smaller sized ships. While they are making progress, there are still far too many ships in the fleet for them to effectively take out enough to make a dent in the Thanagarian fleet. Even Harvey can see it with his inexperience in battle and tactics.

“Umm, excuse me…” Hal interrupts, only to trail off as the inscrutable gaze of the Batman settles on him. 

“What?” the Batman snaps irritably.

“Even with everyone and the heavy hitters you have in the air, they aren’t going to be able to make a sizable dent in the Thanagarian fleet in time. Even taking out the main guy isn’t going to make much of a difference if you can’t cut off the communications with the rest of the fleet. The way the Thanagarian military works is like a hydra; if you kill or incapacitate the guy in charge, someone else just steps up into his place. In order to make sure it sticks, you have to take out their communications. If their comms are gone, all this neatly oiled military machine stuff just falls apart,” Harvey explains. Never in his life did he ever think that the hours of being forced to study Thanagarian military strategy would ever be of use to him. He silently thanks his father for forcing him to learn it. “Most all of the comm traffic, which isn’t just the upper brass issuing orders, but also the automatic systems that are controlling certain parts of and talking to the rest of the fleet, are all controlled out of the flagship, the ship we are standing on. Take that out, and this whole operation falls apart.”

Batman studies him for a moment, the wheels and gears in the brilliant mind obviously turning as he tries to reformulate a new plan with the information. However, before he can finish his train of thought, Harvey plows forward.

“Most of the comm systems are connected to the power generation systems that are on the starboard side of the ship. The power generation units are connected to and right next to the starboard engine systems. If you supercharge the engines to flameout, it feeds back into the power units and causes them to overload and start going into meltdown. The power converters will shut down to attempt to prevent damage to critical components, and power to all these systems is cut off. There is a backup power unit, but if the flameout is severe enough and happens quickly enough, the auxiliary power can also be completely destroyed and rendered unusable.”

“The corridor over here leads straight down to those power units and engine bay. If we take out those engines and power units, the comms go out, the fleet falls apart, and the weapons and maneuverability of this ship basically give up the ghost. It becomes like the proverbial fish in barrel being shot at, all but defenseless with almost no shields, no heavy weapons, or way to maneuver or get away. I know the procedure to start the flameout procedure that will lead to the cascade failure of the systems. With some help, I could do it in less than fifteen minutes.”

Everyone in the group looks at him, and then back to Batman, their de facto leader. With no change in expression, Batman asks gruffly, “How much further to the control center where Talak is?”

Harvey contemplates for a minute, and then answers, “Not far. It’s right up ahead, take two lefts, a right, and another right, and there should be a pair of heavily armored blast doors. Should be right through there.”

Batman nods, and then says, “Take your people and go to the engine room and perform the flamout procedure. Flash and I will go confront Talak, Hol, and the high command. Hopefully we can rescue John.”

“And after that?” Harvey asks.

“Get the hell off the ship. If you can assist the rest of the League, do so. If not, get out of the way.” And just like that, Batman is already away, Flash jogging after him. 

“Well, ok. I guess we’ll just go blow up the ship then. It’s not like we’re important or anything,” Birdgirl says irritably. Avenger squawks in agreement. “How in the hell are we supposed to get off this thing anyway after we blow it up? You and Avenger are the only ones who can fly. Roxanne and I are kind of fucked.”

“We’ll figure it out when we get to that point,” Harvey answers. “Let’s get down there first.”

Judy looks at him for a second. “You have no idea how we are going to get off this thing.”

“Haven’t made it that far yet. Main thing is to disable this damn ship so that we have a place to go back to after all this is over.”

****

_How fucking typical._

They are falling.

_To be this close to victory, to make it this far alive, only to have it all fall apart at the end. And to drag everyone else I care about down with me. This is just so damn typical of my life, I shouldn’t have expected any different. I lived a failure, and I’ll die one._

Harvey is holding Birdgirl close to his chest in a one-armed hug, while he desperately tries to hold onto the leg of a panicking, thrashing Roxanne. Throwing themselves out of an exit over Metrocity while desperately trying to avoid a Thanagarian patrol that was trying to kill them after they successfully flamed out the engines and disabled the power was probably not the best plan. Of course, Harvey’s damaged wing feathers failed within seconds of jumping out, and they were now falling. While he can slow their fall some, his wings are next to useless. Seeing how the fleet is completely falling apart as a result of their efforts does bring him some satisfaction, but it is mostly stomped out by the regret and guilt at dragging Birdgirl, and Roxanne, into this mess and leading to their fast approaching demise. Avenger is diving at their side, clawing desperately at them as the bond-eagle tries to arrest their fall in any way he can. His efforts are ultimately futile. 

His grip on Roxanne is suddenly lost as she gives out a panicked kick that is powerful enough to send her spiraling downward in complete freefall. Horrified, Harvey and Judy watch her fall out of sight, still screaming and thrashing in a panic. Avenger screams in distress, obviously conflicted between attempting to save his master or his best friend. He makes an abortive attempt at a dive, but then pulls back and circles back around to return to Harvey. Judy just closes her eyes.

_God, I hope that losing us won’t hurt Billy too badly. He’s already lost his parents, I don’t want to think what will happen when he finds out we’re gone. At least that aunt of his will take care of him. I know my parents and sister probably won’t care, and neither will anyone else back in Metrocity or Midway. Well, maybe Reducto, but who knows. Harvey Birdman is a failure, no one else will care when he’s gone. God, I wish I hadn’t brought Judy with me. I don’t know why I even allowed her to come. One more last failure in a long line of them, but this time it will cost a life and a parent her child. Fuck me, I deserve to burn in the deepest pits of hell._

All attempts at feeling sorry for himself are halted as their fall is unexpectedly arrested. They hit something solid with a painful thump, and Harvey yells in pain as he feels something in his good wing twist unnaturally and snap. He and Judy thrash around for a moment, tangled in each other, before Harvey can finally look around at their surroundings while trying to ignore the pain in his wing. They are in a hideously tacky blue and red flying car with a white stripe down the hood and giant eyes painted on it. Falcone, once known as the superhero Blue Falcon before retiring to work at Sebben and Sebben, is piloting it with Dynomutt and Roxanne in the passenger seat. They’ve fallen in a heap in the backseat.

“Sorry about the rough landing,” Falcone yells over the noise as Dynomutt transforms some part of his body to take out a few Thanagarians trying to shoot at them. “We’ve been trying to shoot down these bastards ever since they appeared over the city but there just seems to be no end to them! We were shooting them down when I had a fucking emu land on me. After I got it off me, I thought it looked familiar, and then we saw you falling with a messed-up wing, so we took a quick detour to catch you guys before you fell.”

It takes a minute for Harvey to answer, but he finally manages a rather weak, “Thank you.” Falcone manages to get them down to street level, depositing them on the ground before blasting off again to take off after another squad of Thanagarians. Still rather confused and in a haze of pain, Harvey doesn’t remember much of what happens next. He later vaguely remembers tearing through squads of Thanagarians with light blasts while Judy screams and takes out residual and fear on them with her briefcase of traffic codes. Flashes come and go. He sees Mentok levitating the god awful Ten Commandments stone out in front of the courthouse that they all hated from the minute it was installed and bellowing, “Bweeoooooo, I am Mentok the Mindtaker! Bow before me!” before throwing the entire thing onto one of the Thanagarians floating sled platforms with Thanagarians scattering everywhere. Falcone blasting the shit out of Thanagarians in his tacky car with Dynomutt using every tool in his robotic body to take them out. Reducto screaming “Back off!!” at an advancing squad of Thanagarians before they end up a tiny squad running in panic after being hit by a shrink gun ray. Mightor and the Mafia fighting side by side as they shoot and smash at any Thanagarians too close. Even ordinary citizens are getting into the spirit of things and picking up bricks, pipes, car mufflers, anything handy, and throwing or beating Thanagarians with it. Harvey isn’t sure how they won, when the Thanagarians retreated, or how he ended up on his couch back in Fawcett, but he wakes up on his stomach alone to a muted pain in his left wing with a splint bracing it. 

Trying to go back to sleep is out of the question, as the pain in his wing and the hum of voices in the main room make it impossible. Intending to get some painkillers and tell everyone to shut up, he finally drags himself out of bed and heads towards the next room over where the main law practice is. Opening the door, he is completely stunned, as the entire room is packed. Everyone turns as the door opens, and fall silent. A yell of “Harvey!” and he is assaulted as Billy grabs him in a hug.  
Startled, all Harvey can do is return the hug and stare at everyone else around him. Roxanne, Avenger, Judy, and her mother are all present, as well as Billy. Mentok, Reducto, Falcone, Dynomutt, and several others from Sebben and Sebben are all there. Billy’s adoptive aunt and uncle, and a young girl that has to be Billy’s twin sister are also there standing rather awkwardly, clearly uncomfortable in the group of mostly superheroes, ex-superheroes, and ex-supervillians. And there, at the edge of the crowd, are his parents and sister. They make their way through the crowd, until Katar is rather awkwardly standing in front of Harvey. He suddenly lunges and engulfs him in a hug, muttering “I’m proud of you,” and just as quickly releases him. His mother smiles at him, and Dawnstar gives him a thumbs up. It’s not perfect family make up like the movies, but it’s a start.

Feeling overwhelmed, Harvey sinks into a chair while everyone else chatters around him. Some has had the presence of mind to order pizza (Harvey suspects Judy) and everyone ends up eating at his place. Everyone finally leaves, and peace returns to the apartment. Billy is asleep on the couch in the main office, and Roxanne in the office chair. Avenger is at his side, as he hasn’t left it since Harvey woke up. With a quick check on everyone, Harvey retreats to the couch in the back bedroom and passes out.

****

The speed at which life can change is dizzying. Harvey drifts in and out for a few days, sleeping as his body heals itself from a broken wing and enduring a full molt, not a pleasant process for any Thanagarian. The Thanagarians have all but left Earth, retreating back to their planet. The news says the Justice League defeated them. Harvey doesn’t really care, as he doesn’t want the recognition. He is no hero, nothing more than a stupid lawyer at the right place at the right time.

He wakes up and returns to his practice, only to find that Judy has all but taken over in the month he’s been invalid. She was in her element, running the firm with terrifying efficiency and over the top actions. Apparently, she had gone out and basically hired all of the former staff at Sebben and Sebben, which means Birdman, Attorney at Law suddenly quadrupled in size and Harvey found himself overseeing multiple lawyers. Falcone and Reducto handled most cases and were exemplary in representing the firm in his absence. Profits increased sevenfold in less than a few weeks. Mary Bromfield and her husband had sat down with both Billy and Harvey and had decided to relinquish guardianship of Billy to Harvey, with the caveat that he move into a better residence and they would be able to see Billy regularly. They also decided to move to Fawcett, as most of Fieldcrest had been destroyed by the Thanagarians and they would be closer to Billy. Both Mentok and Mightor had both moved to Fawcett as well, citing dissatisfaction with the judicial system in Metrocity, but Harvey had other suspicions on why they had moved. Of course, with Mightor moving in, the mafia showed up shortly after.

Perhaps the most startling development was the moving of his parents and sister to Fawcett. Anti-Thanagarian sentiment was running extremely high in Midway, as it was all over the world, after the invasion. It didn’t matter that Hawkman and Hawkwoman had defended Midway since the thirties, they were not wanted, and made so unwelcome eventually they left their beloved city. While things were not perfect between Harvey and his family, they had made strides in healing the rift between them.  
Harvey was on the roof of the new office they were occupying downtown that evening, watching as night fell and the lights of the city came on one by one. Earlier that day, a massive bombshell had been dropped on him when he was told he was the sole beneficiary of Phil Sebbens will, inheriting the man’s rather sizable fortune. Phil, while running around screaming and beating Thanagarians over the head with a croquet mallet while in a trench coat during the invasion, was accidentally hit by a bus. Harvey was still trying to get over the shock of the day’s events, as well as the last few months.

A whisper of a sound nearby, and he looked up to see Captain Marvel hovering rather awkwardly in front of him. “Uhh, hi Harvey. You mind if I join you? I wanted to talk to you about a couple of things,” Cap said while rubbing the back of his head uncomfortably.

“Sure,” Harvey shrugged, and Cap dropped down next to him in a sitting position. A silence fell over both of them, which lasted for a long while. The sky continued to darken as the night came alive with the lights and sounds of the city.

Looking to break the silence as it continued to drag on, Harvey finally spoke. “When we were up in the ships during the invasion, we came to a window while we were headed to the main control area with the rest of League. We could see you out there, calling up a storm. I saw it taking out the smaller Thanagarian fighters, even though they were covered in Nth metal, which is naturally resistant to magic. How were you able to do that?”

Captain Marvel looked startled, and then answered, “Oh, it was a combination of both the electricity and the magic. I put so much power into it that it was able to basically ‘jump’ beyond the Nth metal armor the smaller ships had and hit the superstructure, which was made of ordinary metal and is super conductive. It went straight to the engines and they blew up when they were overloaded. It didn’t work as well on the bigger ships since their armor is thicker.”

Another few moments of silence passed before Harvey spoke again. “I knew you were powerful, I know you have said that you have power on par with Superman, but I didn’t truly comprehend it until I saw you through that window calling up that storm. It was awesome but…..also terrifying. Knowing that you have that power and responsibility is kind of scary. When you are the Captain, are you Billy? Or….someone else?”

Marvel considered the question carefully before he answered. “It’s kind of complicated, but to put it in the most basic terms, I’m both. I’m Billy, but….more. I have all the knowledge and wisdom of my patron gods, especially Solomon. It makes me older and more mature, and act a little differently than when I’m all Billy, but at the core I’m still him. Right now, the body I’m in is basically a magic construct-that’s why I’m invulnerable. Even if the body is destroyed or I ‘die’, it will eventually regenerate. That’s also why I look so much like my dad. I could change the way it looks, but when I first became Captain Marvel, in my mind my dad was my hero. That’s why I look like him.”

“I’m the guardian of the source of magic, the Rock of Eternity. The Wizard Shazam guards the rock itself, but I act as the guardian in the physical world. The only entrance to the rock from this realm is in Fawcett City, which is why I’m based here. All magic power moves like water over land, which is why you have things like nodes or ley lines. This is probably a really bad way to explain this, but the Rock sort of acts like the filter in a fish tank; all magic comes from and returns to it, and it purifies the magic as it flows through.”

“The reason I have so much power compared to other magic users is I have complete, uninhibited access to all the magic that is flowing out of the Rock, which is a lot. I can also use magic in its most raw form, which is the most powerful but also the most difficult to control. Most all other magic users you see, even Dr. Fate, can’t do that-its why they usually will use things like magic artifacts or magic words.”

“The Rock is also why Fawcett is so weird. The magic is so strong here that it permeates basically every part of the city. Even time flows differently here, which is why you see things like people wearing clothes from the forties while using smartphones. The magic will even influence people, and make them forget things that are ‘weird,’ or that might be detrimental to the Rock or the guardian. That’s one of the reasons Batman and the other League members haven’t shown up at your door. They literally don’t remember that you exist.”

“Oh thank god,” Harvey exclaimed, Cap giving him a startled look. “I’ve been terrified for weeks of Batman or someone jumping out of every dark corner. I’m quite happy that he doesn’t remember me. In fact, I’d be ecstatic if I never had to see that creepy bastard ever again.”

Marvel laughed, and said, “Well, I don’t know if I can guarantee that.”

“Look Billy, don’t worry about me being disappointed in you for choosing to be a hero, or being afraid of you for being a magical powerhouse, or anything else. You have your responsibilities, and you do a good job with them. I’m not your parents by any means, nor will I try to replace them, but I’ll always have your back, whether you are a hero, a villain, a lawyer, or just a plain guy. Now what was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

Marvel looks startled and grins happily. His expression then abruptly changes. “Uhh, I was wondering if I could, um, get a pet?”

Harvey groans, and says, “You already got a dog, didn’t you?”

Rubbing the back of neck rather awkwardly again, Marvel says, “Well, actually it’s a cat. Kind of. Aunt Nora’s been watching him for me the last few months, and I’ve been going over and taking care of him, but she doesn’t really want him in her house anymore and wants me to take him.”

Harvey considers for a minute, and then says, “Well as long as its house trained and not too bad-tempered, or hairy, I guess it could live with us.” He gets up, drops off the roof and swoops upward, setting a course for home.

Cap joins him, expression happy and bright as he chatters away. “Oh Harvey, you’ll love him, he’s great. His name is Tawny, and he’s the best cat ever…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well its been fun folks. I hope you enjoyed the ending, i tried to wrap everything up as well as I could!

**Author's Note:**

> This fic vaguely inhabits that weird universe that my other DC fic, Earth is Space Australia, inhabits, where I took elements of the Young Justice show and the DC animated universe from the late ninties/early 2000s and flushed most of the canon down the toilet.
> 
> This whole mess came from a vague dream I had after I spent a night reading multiple fics with the popular trope of Billy being Batman's son, and then watched the "High Speed Buggy Chase" episode of Harvey Birdman. I don't remember much about it other than Harvey was Thanagarian and somehow had a shitty law practice with Roxanne the emu and ended up taking care of Billy anyway. It evolved into a story about a guy who drinks too much trying to get his shit in order after somehow ending up with a kid he didn't expect to have in his life-based on what happened to an a real-life uncle I had.
> 
> I go with the Harvey Birdman show canon-he is gay, so no, he and Birdgirl aren't together. She's simply an overenthusiastic fangirl teen who forced Harvey to hire her. Any other canon is highly subject to change. Dawnstar is a real DC character but all she shares with the original here is the name and the fact she has wings. Carter Hol and Katar Hol are two different people, with Carter being a washed up wannabe. Kendara Thaal and any Thanagarian culture are completely made up.
> 
> Also, cold spam is awful-I can confirm from personal experience.


End file.
